LGBT armed forces veterans jailed or dismissed for being gay have thanked the Sunday Mirror for helping win them pardons.
Now they are demanding a personal apology from Boris Johnson for their lifetime of shame and misery and compensation for lost pensions.
The Sunday Mirror has been battling alongside charity Fighting With Pride to get justice for veterans so cruelly treated by the MoD.
And last week Home Secretary Priti Patel granted pardons for gay people convicted of offences which would not be illegal today.
Although homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain in 1967 it remained a criminal offence in the military until 2000 when a European Court of Human Rights ruling lifted the armed forces gay ban.
Up to 20,000 gay servicemen and women were dismissed because of their sexuality while others were jailed.
Many had medals wrenched from their uniforms in shaming rituals while others were forbidden from wearing berets at remembrance ceremonies.
Former RAF Flt Lieutenant Caroline Paige, joint CEO of FWP and the first openly transgender armed forces officer, said: “Thank you Sunday Mirror for your support and all you have done to highlight this issue.
“What happened wrecked lives. Those sent to prison or dismissed simply because they were gay deserve an apology on behalf of the UK from the man in charge of the UK.
“Those dismissed didn’t have a chance to build up a life. And they were not just stripped of uniforms but their self-esteem.”
Lieutenant Elaine Chambers joined the army at 21 as a student nurse and intended to stay until she was 55.
But Elaine, now 61, from the Isle of Wight, was kicked out in 1988 shortly before promotion to captain after becoming involved with another woman.
Following the ECHR ruling her losses in earnings and pension were calculated as £423,000 but she only saw £45,000 of that.
“The way the MoD worked out the money I was due was deeply flawed and designed to give me as little as possible.
”It took me 13 years to get it and they wouldn’t even pay my legal costs.
“Pardons are progress and long overdue. And we are all incredibly grateful to the Sunday Mirror.
“But I have mixed feelings about a pardon for just being ourselves. And I’d be well off if I hadn’t been dismissed so there should now be compensation for that.”
Those who served long enough to qualify for pensions had 10% docked for a gay conviction. The backlog will now have to be repaid with some veterans now in their 80s looking forward to backdated payments which could be worth as much as £20,000.
Ms Patel will change the law so those with historical convictions or cautions for consensual same-sex activities from either civil or military courts can apply to have them wiped from criminal records.
That will be followed by an automatic pardon.
The Home Secretary said: “It is only right that where offences have been abolished, convictions should be disregarded too.”
Her move follows the precedent set for Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing who received a posthumous pardon in 2013 for being chemically castrated in 1952 after a conviction for gross indecency with another man.
The new law will be introduced as an amendment to the Police and Crime Bill now going through Parliament.
Fighting With Pride is also demanding that LGBT officers who had military records erased are now put back on the official retired list.
That will allow them to include their ranks in civilian life.
RAF medic David Bonney, now 52 of Plymouth, Devon, was the last person in the UK to be sent to jail for being gay.
He was given a six-month sentence in a military prison in Colchester in 1993. He served four months before being freed on appeal.
But it meant having to declare a criminal record in civilian life each time he applied for nursing jobs.
And his forces pension when he reaches 60 will be £200 a month less than it would have been had he completed the nine years service he signed up for.
He said: “I want compensation and an apology for losing my private life.”
